AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
London: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejected in a television interview Wednesday allegations made in a British military policy paper that his country indirectly supports terrorism and extremism. “Absolutely, 200 percent, I reject it,” Musharraf told the BBC.
The allegations were made in a policy paper written by an unnamed senior official in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) obtained by the BBC — the broadcaster described the author as linked to Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, and part of a fact-finding mission to Pakistan in June.
“Indirectly, Pakistan, through the ISI, has been supporting terrorism and extremism, whether in London on 7/7 (the July 7, 2005 bombings on London's transport network) or in Afghanistan or Iraq,” the report reads.
Criticism of Pakistan has risen recently, with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan charging Wednesday in a CNN interview that fugitive Taliban militia chief Mullah Omar was in Pakistan, and that Islamabad needed to do more against Islamic religious schools that “are training extremists full of hatred for the rest of the world.”
The policy paper proposes using military links between British and Pakistani armed forces to persuade Musharraf to step down as leader of the country, accepting free elections, withdrawing the army from civilian life and dismantling Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI.
Pakistan's military ruler responded angrily to the suggestions, saying: “I would like to tell this Ministry of Defence spokesman to say the Ministry of Defence maybe should be dismantled before the ISI is dismantled.”
He said the ISI “won the Cold War for the world”, and was a “disciplined force”, adding: “We don't like anybody advising us to dismantle ISI, least of all the Ministry of Defence.”
Musharraf added that he would bring up the matter in discussions with Prime Minister Tony Blair, with whom he will speak on Thursday, according to Blair's Downing Street office.
A spokeswoman for the defence ministry said the paper “in no way represent the views of either the MoD or the government.
She said the author of the report “suspects that they have been released … precisely in the hope that they would cause damage to our relations with Pakistan.”
“Pakistan is a key ally in our efforts to combat international terrorism and her security forces have made considerable sacrifices in tackling Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.”
In recent days, Musharraf has alleged the US Central Intelligence Agency paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, and that former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan if it did not back the United States in the “war on terror”.
